In a candid interview, two MSc International Business students from Vietnam gave their views and experiences of working in cross-cultural groups vs. mono-cultural groups after extensive experience in both types of group during the year’s studies.

The student composition in the MSc IB is highly international and students are required to work in groups frequently. Over the course of the academic year, Hieu and Duy have gained valuable experiences working in only Vietnamese groups (their nationality), only S.E. Asian groups, and in other groups with more international diversity (i.e. with Europeans and North Americans).

In a frank interview Hieu and Duy gave some insight into their experiences.

“Western Europeans don’t think before they speak, while the S.E. Asians will think deeply before giving their opinion,” explained Hieu.

“The Europeans will just speak, they don’t care if it’s right or wrong.”

However, Hieu explained that this western European characteristic, in a culturally diverse group, will “encourage a group’s creative problem-solving capacity; more ideas will be proposed and better solutions will be found.”

On the other hand, the culturally diverse group will spend much more time (than a mono-cultural group) on communication and clarification, thus impeding the group’s effectiveness.

Hieu and Duy both learned from these experiences: in the event of a misunderstanding they now seek clarification immediately, not the day after when time has been wasted working toward a misunderstood aim.

Hieu and Duy were obviously reluctant (perhaps too polite?) to say anything negative about other cultures’ ways of working. They eventually admitted that the S.E. Asian groups they had worked in displayed more group cohesion, and less individualism. They noticed this characteristic when some European group members (at the end of a group project) asked professors to give them a higher mark because they had worked harder than other group members.

This individualist characteristic was also evidenced by the European students asking how much they would be paid for the consulting projects done with actual companies; for Hieu and Duy simply working with a real company on a real project was reward enough.

And the million-dollar question:

“In which group did you get the best results?”

     • Hieu replied, “In a group of three with a Norwegian and a Canadian.”

     • Duy replied, “In a group of four with students from Serbia, France and Poland.”

International business has its advantages!